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Zach Thomas Full Interview · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

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  Speaker 1: my heart. Hi, this was Sean McDonald. How you're doing,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Sean McDonald, you're listening to Money Making Conversation. I got
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: in studio guests. Good friend made him in the lobby
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and I say, hey, I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: want to have you on my show. And he's showing
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: up looking really snazzy with his Chick fil A butt
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: known and that Chick fil A ray, which I had
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  Speaker 1: no very familiar. I'm very familiar because guess what I
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: have to appen. But next days Beginnings Leadership Journing. They
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: as a Chicken farmer, attended the U. S. Military Academy
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: at West Point, served as an Army ranger instructor, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a college pastor, but none of this adequately prepared him
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: for the challenge of leading a team of one hundred
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: young adults when he became a Chick fil A franchise
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  Speaker 1: in two thousand eight. Please working to Money Making Conversation.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: The author of Leader Farming, Zach Thomas. It's an honor
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and pleasure. I appreciate it. I wanted everybody to hear
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: your background because I thought it was important when I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: read the book for people to know while you were
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a certain way and why you realize you have to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: change because you know, when you go into Chick fil
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: A and I go on a lot, yes, and it's
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: always crowded. That's a good thing. That means you're you're
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: you're into a franchise that generates the traffic. But it
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: also means that what happens behind the counter also is
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a major reason for the success story behind the Chick
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: fil A. Before we get started in detail, I want
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: everybody to know this that this book, what I Like,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: is really a book about employing millennials and centennials. And
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: if you don't know whether millennials, as a person born
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: between eighteen seven and nine and nine six, my daughter
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: she's a centennial because she's born in eighteen eighty seven.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So so you're writing in a lot, you're talking to
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  Speaker 1: my daughter right now and so and you're gen X,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: which is born six and nine and seventy eight. So
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I wanted to put all that in because that's that's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: important the book to know that here's a guy you was,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: You was a individual who had this military chaining, conservative
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: type tones in your lifestyle. Coming in these these young
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: people that see you're hired, but they always think they
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: could take your job. Absolutely, tell walk us through those steps, yes, sir. Well,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: so again, like you mentioned, I came from a military background,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and um, my leadership style was, you know, you just
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: make people do push ups until their arms fall off
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: or cry for their mother, you know, and and so
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: just creating that that fear in them. Um. And and
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: unfortunately that that didn't work very well with millennials. And um,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you know why why let's why? Well, you know so,
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  Speaker 1: so I'll tell you about a little bit about the transition.
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  Speaker 1: So I explained it like a pendulum effect. You know,
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  Speaker 1: I was all the way over to the far left,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you know with my leadership style and uh and fear based,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: fear based leadership. And then when I came off active
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: duty into the army, Um, I was playing on going
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: back in the army as a chaplain. When in the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: pastor as a college and singles pastor, and I shifted
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: all the way over to the far right, and I
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  Speaker 1: became this somewhat passive leader. And then when I came
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: on board because I was. I was just I didn't
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  Speaker 1: want to be that guy anymore. I didn't want to
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  Speaker 1: be that person that just you know, put the fear
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  Speaker 1: of God figuratively in people. And uh and so I
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  Speaker 1: shifted a hard, hard right and um and I began
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  Speaker 1: to um to just really adopt the philosophy if you
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  Speaker 1: just love everybody enough, they'll do the right thing. Well,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: when I came on board with Chick fil A, that
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: didn't go over very well either. What do you mean
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you didn't go over? There's nothing negative. We're talking about
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  Speaker 1: management styles and talking about motivating young minds that dominate
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: their workforce and also dominating the workforce moving forward. And
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: so with that being said, we're talking about millennials and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: we're talking to centennials, and we're talking millennials really get
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: bashed a lot. There's a lot of negative. You know,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: how do you motivate their minds? You know, they have
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: this entrepreneurship spirit. They want to run the company before
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: they work for the company. They don't even foresee the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: whole aspect of retirement is not even part of their mantra.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: They definitely because you mentioned that the idea of a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: working for a company for thirty years is U is
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  Speaker 1: a thing of the past, think of the past, because
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: they're willing to move around with that type approach. What
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: was the lightbulb? What was the light bulb? Zach? Well, honestly,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I got hit by a car walking across the street,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: so and and not that you know, everybody has to
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: get hit by a car, but I was pretty stubborn.
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  Speaker 1: I don't want to get hit by So I was pedestrian,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: walk across street, hit by a car, and and um,
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  Speaker 1: I spent a lot of time just thinking about my
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: leadership style and how I was leading people. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: for me, again, I've been on both ends of the extreme,
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  Speaker 1: and I found that neither one was working very well.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, some days I would come in and
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  Speaker 1: I would be, you know, like Dr Jackal Mr. Hyde.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: They didn't know which Zack they were going to get today,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and I was just knee jerking in my leadership style
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: back and forth. And I had to be consistent. And
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I think that's one of the things that you know,
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  Speaker 1: millennials are really looking for someone that's authentic, someone that's consistent,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: someone that is who they say they are, and they'll
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: do what they say they're gonna do um, not leading
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: out of fear, but also giving them some structure, because
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I think that what we're dealing with the millennials is
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of failed parenting strategies. Unfortunately, you know, they've
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: been coddled. Um and and get a trophy for helicopter parents.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Helicopter parent, you know, now it's more like the Apache
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: helicopter parent right now, swoop and take them away. So
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: so yeah, so just just that learning how to to
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: really help them grow up in some of the places
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: where their parents failed to help them grow up. The
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: thing about it is that I when I was reading
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a book that you wrote called Leader Farming as a body,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Zach Thomas, Uh, you're a chick RelA Franchi franchise e,
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  Speaker 1: and uh you built that model while you were there.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: You basically you built on a successful model by the
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: fact that you said, look, if you're gonna hire these entreprenees, entreprenees,
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  Speaker 1: young people with these entrepreneurship mentality, with just centennials and millennials,
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  Speaker 1: how do you communicate Because you talked about you went
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: into that with your traditional way. You know, if somebody
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  Speaker 1: didn't work out, you fired and you hired somebody else.
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  Speaker 1: But then your work staff saw that's how you treated
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  Speaker 1: people that didn't that didn't match your mentality, didn't match
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  Speaker 1: your work plan, and that was important for you to
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  Speaker 1: have that you saw that the light that these are
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: the light bulbs I'm talking about because I was that
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  Speaker 1: type of guy, and I would tell you this is
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  Speaker 1: that when when when I made that shift, it was
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: when I when my life became comfortable. A lot of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: times you you operate out of fear or that control
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  Speaker 1: and command philosophy that you talked about when you don't
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: trust the environment that you did and my correct cons
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and what did you trust? What was it about you
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: or the environment? Well, you know, I think a lot
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  Speaker 1: of what the reason why people lead a certain way
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  Speaker 1: is one it is for their own insecurities, um and
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  Speaker 1: I think also they want to try to control things,
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  Speaker 1: but it's really kind of a myth of control. And
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  Speaker 1: so what I realized somewhere along the way was that,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: like you said, the millennials are very entrepreneurial in their
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  Speaker 1: in their spirit. And so if I create this kind
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  Speaker 1: of a brand within a brand that says I'm about
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  Speaker 1: helping you grow and become the best version of yourself,
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  Speaker 1: So you know, the small statement that I used to
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: just kind of describe my my leadership philosophy. Now as
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: I say, some people grow potatoes, some farmers grow corn.
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  Speaker 1: I grow leaders That's what I do. And so it
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: attracts talent. And you know, we're we're an incredible what
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: we call war for talent right now, and we're all
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: competing for for great talent, uh and trying to get
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: millennials to to stick around and and um and actually
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  Speaker 1: serve in our organizations. But I think it's very counterintuitive.
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  Speaker 1: But what I've decided to do is embrace this idea
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  Speaker 1: of turnover. Just say, you know, I want to help
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  Speaker 1: you for a season, you know, and if that's six
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  Speaker 1: months or two years or whatever, I'm gonna embrace this
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  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna help you get to where you want
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  Speaker 1: to be in life. And then they intern actually leave
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a trail of high performance in my organization. And we know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: it's really interesting you say that, because I've always had
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: that philosophy. I will always tell people, don't expect to
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: get rich with me. I want to prepare you for
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: your next career, and you take the tools, and a
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: lot of times they didn't get it. They didn't see
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the value of what I was putting in place, And
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: now I get phone calls thank you. I understand now
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  Speaker 1: I see what you're trying to accomplish in my life.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So you're saying that you work for Chick fil A,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: but you look at that that's not the goal in
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: our relationship. Our relationship to take the values that I'm
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: teaching you here and use them someplacelf If you happen
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to become a franchise, which has happened on your leadership,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: that's awesome, that's a that's the double blessing. But if
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: you don't take these tools, what are some of the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: some of the tools that you say they they that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you give them the walk away with, what are some
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of the tools? So one is really helping them adopt
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: a similar leadership philosophy that I helping them see that
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you don't have to lead out of fear um, but
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: you actually have to hold people accountable. You can't just
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: be a passive leader either. And so helping them find,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: you know, the the actual middle ground of leadership to
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: where they can actually love people. But sometimes you may
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: just have to put your arm around and saying I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: love you, I care about you. But you can't work
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: here anymore easily. About the door with love, absolutely, because
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of people do just job for the check,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and that's the worst employee to have. It's just coming
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: to work to pay for the rent. You have to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: have employees of people who believe in your brands, people
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: who champing your calls. And that's where I took away
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: from your book. You're about creating people when they walk
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to work, when they come to work, they're thinking about
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: what they're gonna do to make their day, their employer better,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: to make the environment better. And that's the philosophy I
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: took away from your book. You're encouraging genuine enthusiasm for
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: the work environment and that's really important. That was and
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I want the people to understand that when I read
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the book, you know, I want to definitely bring out
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the young man that wrote the book with you. He's
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a millennial Mr Stop, Mr Stop. So why did you
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: choose him? So? Jared was a publisher, um and so
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: we were in the process of negotiating the book contract
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and there's you know, one price if if he helps
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: you write the book, and then there's one price. And
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: so that's really kind of how it started. But then
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: we realized along the way, like he's a millennial and
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: he thinks this way, and so we were able to
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: really kind of go back and forth a little bit
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: through the content and you know, I'm I'm actually hiring
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: these folks, um and and now really you know, hiring centennials.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: But we're just on the on the beginning of that.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: But but yeah, it's just a great mix for him
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: to actually add value into the book. So you took
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: some away from him, and he took some away from you.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And the middle ground. The number one goal was to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: give us a a learning a tool to be able
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to communicate with a what A what A what A
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: group out there that says that's misunderstood. I have to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: say it because you know, I always tell people, you know,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: when I was growing up, I'm We're just sure people
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: thought I was misunderstood. I was too aggressive. But each
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: generation has their own. But you have to admit that
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you can only be successful if you change. And that's
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: what this book is about. A leadership has to see
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: there's necessary change for different people that you're working with,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and though where you shape the opportunity individually, not as
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: a group. Correct sir, absolutely, so breaking it down. You know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: we talked about farming in the book F A R M.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: So freedom leading is just that that middle ground of
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: leadership not being command and control and not being passive. UH.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: The A is for UH acknowledging the seasons and embracing turnover.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: You know, there's this idea of embracing turnover, acknowledging that
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: some people will be with me for a season and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: some people will will stay with me longer, and but
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: just acknowledging that and accepting that. UM taking risks. You know,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: hiring millennials is actually taking a risk sometimes, you know
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: you're actually sticking your neck out there and saying, oh,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I think that it's just hiring anybody, you know, I think,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: but I think that because of the fact that you've
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: chosen and understood that these are different thinkers. It's very important.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I know, if we only have you for warm break today,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I want to bring you back next month one for
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: two breaks, because I really feel it is important because
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: our broadcast on HBCU campuses and start the country on
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Sirius Channel one for the two they need to hear it,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: understand that there's a plan, and the more people to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: understand that the Leader Farming, which you can get on Amazon.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Type in Leader Farming, Zach Thomas. You're amazing and you
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: look good and your chick story and can you come
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: back next month? Would love to two breaks. Thank you.
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